virtual office – Xojo Programming Blog

Take a Sanity Break: Check Out Xojo’s Office Pets

Alyssa Foley — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 15:45:13 +0000

A wonderful perk of Xojo’s virtual office is getting to spend the day with our favorite people, and by people I mean pets.

Having a pet in your office provides a friendly, positive diversion, which is excellent for employee morale, pets can also increase productivity and their presence in the workplace has been proven to reduce stress. Pets help us working-from-home workaholics step away and take a sanity break. So take a minute and have some eyebleach on us. Meet the Xojo office pets!

These Xojo Office Assistant positions are filled:

Geoff Perlman: This is Trixie. She’s a 7 year old English Golden Retriever. She’s with me in my home office (on this very comfy bed) nearly every hour that I’m working. Whenever there someone walking by outside, she makes sure I know it. When I stand up at my desk, she looks to see if I’m changing my glasses (from my computer glasses to my distance glasses). That tells her I’m not just stretching so she will get up as well and follow me with the hopes that I’m headed to the kitchen for lunch.

If I’m putting on my shoes in the morning, she knows we are going for a walk. If it’s mid-day, she knows I’m going out so she will go to her crate (she’s crate trained). If I come out of the bedroom in my swim trunks, she knows we are going up the street to a neighbor’s house who also has a golden retriever and a swimming pool. Trixie’s energy level goes up 10X and she will practically drag me all the way up the street. And of course if SHE needs to go out, she sits at the backdoor and barks. If I don’t respond, she will eventually come to my office, stare at my and bark again as if to say, “What the heck?

***

Robin Lauryssen-Mitchell: Curry, my rabbit. Actually he’s supposed to be my kid’s, but, well you know how that works! No matter how stupid whatever it is I’ve just done, there is always my buddy who won’t criticise And he has one more brain cells than me!

***

Stephane Pinel: Maïa (Border Collie, 18 months), our dog who uses my home office to hide all her balls and toys in. If I don’t want to play, she doesn’t stay.

Our boy cat Tom (2 yo) and Moon (1 yo). Both have two reasons to live: eating and sleeping. They come in my home office to sleep. I’m not sure if they figured out I’m a human. They just don’t care…

***

Paul Lefebvre: These are my kids’ cats. They like to sleep in the hallway outside my office while I’m working and come in to bug me around noon because they want their Fancy Feast for lunch. They are cats so all they do is sleep and eat. They don’t really do anything else useful.

My son’s cat Christopher. He is 5 years old. We got him from the shelter about 8 months ago. Sometimes we call him “Topher”, but because he’s a cat he doesn’t really respond either way. Here he is caught in a cat trap:

My daughter’s cat Shawmut. He is large, 8 years old and kind of mean to everyone but the kids. He is my nemesis. I mostly call him “Mr. Mutley” because that sounds like a name you’d give an agent of evil. Here he is caught in the same trap:

***

Travis Hill: This is Ace. He is one of the most un-cat like cats I’ve known. He’ll wake me up in the morning, follow me around, want to do whatever I’m doing, and then follow me back to bed at night. He’s also scared of everything that makes noise- particularly whistling noises. Someone whistles a song on TV and he thinks the apocalypse is nigh…

***

Greg O’Lone: This is Loki (not to be confused with “Low Key”). She spends just about every day with me since we moved to Raleigh. Whether it’s sleeping on the desk next to me, pestering me to play with her, or walking on my keyboard because I’m ignoring her.

***

Javier Menedez: These two guys keep me company during the day. They don’t have an official name at all … but my son likes to call them “Daddy” and “Son” (when he is at home, he loves to throw lots of fish-food in … and that means lots of additional fun for me, cleaning the water after that). I have to admit they are not as warm as my old, well-loved dog Popeye … but I have to say in their favour, they significantly lowered the keyboard typos and other programming chaos.

From time to time … I love to push my office chair back and stare at them … very relaxing.

***

Alyssa Foley: This is Wiki, you may have seen her around in other Xojo posts. She is very helpful and has let me stick Xojo stickers on her nose for promotional tweets. She is a loving family dog who has been licking her pups (aka my human children) since the day we brought them home. She a vicious monster to anyone else, as the occasional Xojo customer has heard over the phone. She’s started showing her age lately, there’s a lot more white and grey in her muzzle but we still take a break at 1 everyday to go sit in the yard and get a little sunshine.

This sanity break has been brought to you by the Xojo office pets. I hope you enjoyed it and perhaps take a moment to spend with your fuzzy (or scaly) friend.

5 Tips For Setting Up Your Home Office for Sanity and Productivity

Alyssa Foley — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 10:00:03 +0000

These days it seems everyone is working from home at least a few days a week. That is great for us humans and our home planet too. Your commute across the hall is quick and traffic-free, which is amazing for your personal stress-level and the local air quality. And your home office is likely to make you more productive and happier in your job, if set up right.

As more of us are working from home more often, it’s important to set some basic guidelines for your job and your sanity.

Here are 5 tips to help you set up your home office right, along with a peek into the Xojo team’s own offices.

1. Make a dedicated work space.
You don’t work in the cafeteria or the waiting room when you go into the office. In that same light, you need a dedicated workspace at home. Don’t work at the kitchen table or in a temporary area; there are too many potential distractions and interruptions. A dedicated space will make it easier for you to stay focused as well, as to “log off” and walk away from work. (This is so important!)

To keep your home and work lives from overlapping too much, work in your work space and live in your living space.

2. Create rules, it’s still an office.
It’s still an office and you have work to do. If there are other people (kids…I’m looking at you) at home while you are working it can be easy for them to forget you are working and inadvertently interrupt you. Have rules in place for your office hours such as “when the door is closed, do not interrupt” and “when it is open but I’m talking and you see my boss on the screen, quietly close the door and go away.” My 4 year-olds can abide by these rules so I’m sure you can get your “officemates” to do the same.

3. Stick to a routine.
Get up at a scheduled time each day and get yourself ready to go to work, mentally and physically. Shower, dress, work out, eat breakfast – whatever it is you do, do it daily. Let your routine further exemplify the lines between your work and home.

Remember to take breaks. It’s far too easy to work too many hours without moving when you are not distracted by the comings and goings of general office commotion, which is not healthy. Leave your desk everyday, more than once even! Go eat lunch, walk the dog, do some laundry, water your tomatoes. Paul never eats lunch at his desk, Geoff walks his dog every morning, and I like to prep dinner when I make my lunch. The perks of working from home are many and varied!

4. Interact with others.Working from home can be lonely and that can wear down even the most introverted of employees. Mitigate this by taking advantage of the many ways to remotely communicate. Video and audio conferencing software like Skype, Google Hangouts and Zoom are free and incredibly easy to use. IM via Messages, Slack and others are another great way to chat. Social networks can be nice to interact with others, but be careful to not let them distract you from getting your actual work done.

If at times you truly need to be in the same space with actual humans and the local coffee shop isn’t cutting it, look into coworking offices. A coworking office is a community office that people can share while working. Or consider making your own; I meet regularly at my home (office) with another working mom.

5. Enjoy the flexibility.
Working from home is incredibly convenient, which can make it far too easy to work far too many hours. Enjoy the flexibility you have: eat lunch outside on nice days, attend family activities, get something in the crock-pot, tidy a room. Don’t let work consume your entire life just because it shares space with it – ironically that’s the best way to end up being inefficient at both your job and your life.

Xojo moved to a virtual office model in 2009 and we’ve only looked back to revel in the metrics. This policy allows us to hire the right person for the right job, and then keep them on the Xojo team. Our employee turn-over rate is low, really low – and that reflects well on our employes’ happiness. Going virtual enabled me to keep my job at Xojo when my husband got a great offer in another state 8 years ago – next year is my 10th anniversary with Xojo.

If you set up your office right, working from home can have so many benefits, for you and your job.